Announcement and Things To Come
The next morning I woke and instantly headed to the cafeteria for the announcement. I was the last member of The Shadow Squad to arrive. Sitting at the table we waited for Gerard to walk in but to our surprise the person who entered was Izune. He stood at the front of the room and started speaking, "Good morning, my name is Izune Korizaguya, all of you should know who I am. For those of you who do not, I am the leader of the Jade Knights. One of our members was killed in honorable combat yesterday by my son Rokuza and two of his squad mates Fumiko and Arrion.".
Gesturing towards us we stood and he continued, "I am here to announce the formation of a new group of knights led by my vice captain Iseldis Atozuma. The king's daughter volunteered to lead this new attack squad. Most missions will include stopping bandits and protecting towns from monsters if the situation calls for it.".
A girl with the same hair color as Mina stepped forward. She looked a little older than Mina. She said, "My name is Iseldis. I will be leading the new attack squad taking on the same name as the squad who is joining it. The Shadow Squad will be under my direct command and will be under Roukuza's control while I am absent. Izune mentioned missions and we have no time to lose so all of you gather your gear. We have reports of a corpsescreamer and a grievehood terrorizing a small village.".
She has a commanding presence. Walking out of the room after speaking I gave my squad orders to gather their gear. Hurrying to the barracks we gathered our stuff and met Iseldis outside the gate. She looked pleased we gathered so fast. She told us, "My ability is to create gates to places I have been to and now we are traveling directly to the town of Beckinsale. You might get a little sick on the first trip.".
After the warning she pointed her index finger upward making a giant gate rise from the ground. It flew open and we crossed through giving me a feeling of sickness. Looking around we appeared to be in the center of town. I gave an order, "Fan out and search the area and if anyone finds the grievehood, it's all mine.".
We spread out through the town looking for the residents but it was quiet and had no signs of life. I moved slowly through an alleyway and watched a shadow scurry across the opening. Moving to catch it I picked her up by the back of her shirt. It was a child. I asked her, "Where are all the villagers?".
She only cried in response. I took her back to Captain Iseldis. Giving her to the captain I went to check on everyone's progress. Moving at half speed I checked on each of them and did not notice any monsters nearby. Half an hour later everyone made their way back to the center of town. Giving them a rundown of what I noticed it seems like the corpsescreamer might have evolved to turn living creatures into the undead instead of summoning the already deceased. I noticed signs of a grievehood but its footprints were at least twice the size of a regular and the indent on the ground indicated that it had a bigger weapon than a scythe.
After the briefing Mina, Yukiko, Takino, and Emelia went to help the captain with the child. Arrion, Josento, Fumiko and I stood guard around the small building we had taken shelter in. I gave an order, "If you see any monsters, do not hold back. We have no idea how strong they have gotten since their evolution. The last evolution recorded dates back at least two hundred years.".
Arrion and Fumiko nodded in understanding. Josento said, "It's been two hundred years since the last evolution, so what could have caused an evolution of this proportion.".
I started thinking and I did not have an answer but I had a bad feeling about tonight. Standing guard for the first four hours we switched off with the others. Closing my eyes for a couple minutes Yukiko came through the door and told us to come outside. She pointed toward the darkness and watching where she had pointed I noticed a twelve foot tall outline lumbering towards us. It got closer and I noticed it was similar to a grievehood just twice the size and the scythe it was dragging was at least sixteen feet long. Looking at the others I drew my sword. I told Arrion, Fumiko and Josento to go full power. Turning to Emelia I told her to gather as many rocks as possible and launch them as fast as possible at the beast.
Fumiko and Arrion had formed their armor. More defined than usual I suspect they had a power boost. Arrion rushed in making an ice hammer swinging it toward the behemoth's leg. Making contact the hammer shattered and barely left a scratch. I moved him out of the way before a massive fist slammed into the ground where he stood throwing up a cloud of dust. Hearing a loud creaking noise I noticed a glint of steel in the dust and brought up my sword to block. Taking the full brunt of the attack I was launched through the house passing in front of the captain and out the other side. Getting back on my feet I ran full speed back towards the monster swinging my sword towards its heel trying to cripple it. Barely digging into the bone I felt a chill behind me as Arrion slammed his hammer down on my sword.
My sword wouldn't budge. Fumiko was generating as much heat as possible to try and reduce it to ash. Her fire started turning blue and she started forming spears around the rocks Emelia had gathered. Josento had been charging as much lightning as possible and threw it towards the beast. The behemoth threw its scythe at the lightning making it stop in its track. Josento ran towards his failed attack and absorbed the lightning into his tonfa and sped towards the monster. Swinging as hard as he could he disintegrated one of the bones in its leg making it freeze. I tapped into my anger and told Arrion to make the sharpest possible blade onto my sword. Forming his ice on my weapon I stopped time and sliced through one of its arms.
Returning to my original position I was exhausted. Arrion and Josento were on the verge of collapse. Fumiko was basically passed out on her feet. Emelia fired the rocks at a speed impossible to follow by normal people and almost impossible for me to follow. I stood up and entered the time stop one more time and planted my sword into its skull as the rocks made impact causing an explosion. Bone went flying everywhere and we heard the sounds of combat on the other side of the building. Making our way toward them we saw Mina, Yukiko, Takino, and the captain fighting an army of undead as well as a huge corpsescreamer. I told Emelia to fire whatever rocks she had left at the big one. She launched the rocks causing the corpsescreamer to burst into flames and Captain Iseldis finished it off.
After the battle finished we all collapsed inside the now broken hut. Arrion had to carry Fumiko inside. Captain Iseldis congratulations for a mission complete before we all passed out.